Ben Kweller and wife Liz share obituary for 16-year-old son and plan to launch memorial fund

Dustin Lynch is making time for romance on the road! The «Thinking 'Bout You» singer is currently out with Kane Brown for his «Drunk or Dreaming» tour and opened up to ET about the experience while walking the red carpet at Sunday's CMT Music Awards. «He's super laid-back,» Lynch said of Brown. «On tour, it's a very laid-back atmosphere and easygoing.

Iconic!!

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic During the opening monolog at Sunday night’s CMT Music Awards, broadcast from Austin on CBS, there was a comedic bit in which Kelsea Ballerini and Kane Brown exchanged anniversary presents to celebrate their cohosting of the show for the third consecutive time. Brown gave Ballerini a cowboy hat, and she reciprocated by giving him a pink hat to put on in return. At least a few audience members shared a joke about the exchange: By wearing pink, would Brown be breaking Tennessee’s recently passed law that some believe would ban most drag performances in the state, if they were back home? Viewers whose minds went there during that silly opening were just kidding — but Ballerini really went there later in the three-hour telecast, when she chose four “RuPaul’s Drag Race” queens to perform with her as she sang “If You Go Down (I’m Goin’ Down Too).” That song, off her 2022 album “Subject to Change,” is Ballerini’s anthem of female friendship — and, with the way the CMT Awards routine played out, she very much seemed to be counting drag performers as among those friends. The performance was playful and ostensibly non-political, and in a different year might not have raised very many shaved or unshaved eyebrows. In spring 2023, it was hard to read it as anything other than a statement of: If drag queens are brought down, the rest of us will be dragged down with them.

Kane Brown and his wife Katelyn Brown share a kiss on the red carpet at the 2023 CMT Music Awards held at Moody Center on Sunday (April 2) in Austin, Texas.

Boygenius have announced details of a full headline tour of North America for 2023 – see the full list of dates below and buy tickets here.The indie trio – comprised of Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus – will release their debut album ‘The Record’ on Friday (March 31) and head out on tour later this year.After the band surprised fans with an unexpected performance at Austin Airport during SXSW, they have now revealed tour dates beginning in early June and running through until August.Dates on the tour begin with shows as part of the Re:Set concert series in June, with support from Clairo, Bartees Strange and Dijon.Strange will also support at a handful of the other tour dates, with other acts playing with Boygenius including Carly Rae Jepsen and Broken Social Scene.The tour begins with two Coachella gigs and a warm-up show in Pomona, California, before beginning in earnest in June.Presale tickets for the new gigs go on sale at 10am local time on March 29 here with the code ‘NOTSTRONG’.

Grimes’ baby names just keep getting more unique.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor The odds of the U.S. banning TikTok are higher after the app’s CEO testified before a House committee, according to some analysts. During the hearing, American politicians expressed frustration over what they saw as evasive and unconvincing answers about China’s influence over TikTok — and the communist regime’s ability to track user data — as well as its efforts to curb misinformation and harmful content, particularly in relation to children who use the app. In his D.C. appearance Thursday, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew said the popular app, used by more than 150 million American users monthly, as committed to ensuring privacy and security. He insisted, as TikTok has claimed before, that the company has never furnished U.S. user data to the Chinese Communist Party (nor has the CCP ever made such a request). Chew talked up TikTok’s “Project Texas,” intended to bring user data fully under the aegis of U.S.-based personnel and hosted on Oracle infrastructure.

Killer Mike‘s new solo album will feature collaborations with André 3000, Lil Wayne, Dave Chappelle and more.According to a new Instagram post from Radio Milwaukee station HYFIN, the new project is called ‘Michael’ and will feature a number of collaborations.Following a listening party at SXSW in Austin, Texas last week, DJ Kenny Perez shared: “Without a doubt, RUN and embrace it when it drops. The project is journey through his life and he doesn’t hold back.

Gordon T. Dawson, a costume designer-turned-screenwriter who worked on multiple movies with Sam Peckinpah and wrote on TV hits The Rockford Files and Walker, Texas Ranger among other films and series, died March 6 of pulmonary disease in West Hills, CA, his family announced. He was 84.

EXCLUSIVE: Faith Jenkins will be diving deeper into the deadly side of romance. Her true crime docuseries Killer Relationship with Faith Jenkins has been renewed for Season 2 at Oxygen.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor The first real SXSW in four years wrapped up this weekend, but it’s likely what went down this year will be looked at in the future as another transitional year. After a mid-pandemic return in 2022 that was intentionally less high-profile than past editions, this year’s South By was supposed to be a return to form of the citywide takeover that’s made SX a staple in the calendar for decades for musicians and execs alike. In practice, though, the music portion of SXSW still felt under-attended, and the current wave of music just on the fringe of popularity under-represented. Even the former Spring-break hub intersection of Sixth Street and Red River was a ghost town on Friday night, and lines to get into showcases across town were essentially nonexistent. On top of that, many of the highest-profile showcases were postponed or shut down following a massive lightning storm on Thursday night. Perhaps it’s post-Covid malaise, perhaps it’s the heightened cost of touring, maybe people were waiting to see how this year went — but something in the Topo Chico has changed, hopefully not for forever.

Ben Affleck opened up about his conversation with Michael Jordan before working on the biopic AIR.

Best friends Matt Damon and Ben Affleck hit the red carpet outside The Paramount Theater for the premiere of their new movie AIR during the 2023 SXSW Conference and Festivals on Saturday (March 18) in Austin, Texas.

“Air,” the first film from Ben Affleck and Matt Damon‘s Artist Equity banner, closes SXSW in Austin this year to much anticipation.

The “Evil Dead” series continues with “Evil Dead Rise,” fresh off its world premiere at SXSW in Austin earlier this week. The Playlist’s critic didn’t like Lee Cronin‘s new installment (read our review here), but others elsewhere have, which bodes well for the film’s theatrical release next month.

EXCLUSIVE: Fresh off a surprise “work in progress” screening at SXSW, Robert Rodriguez’s action-thriller Hypnotic, starring Ben Affleck, has been set for a May 12 U.S. release.

Michael J. Fox gushed about his wife Tracy Pollan on Tuesday, saying she "gives" their family "everything we need." "Any good in our family, anything good that we do, comes from her," Fox told People magazine at the SXSW premiere of his movie "Still: a Michael J. Fox Movie" on Tuesday.  Pollan added she thinks listening to each other and knowing when to give the other one space has helped make their 34-year marriage last.  "I think we really listen to each other, we are there for each other when we need each other," Pollan said.

Ed Meza @edmezavar Jose Pozo, director of the celebrated Spanish short “Plastic Killer,” is traveling to the Western U.S. for his next feature film, “Unusual Cowboys,” which he plans to shoot this year. The story follows Milton, a peaceful rancher and occasional musician who loses his daughter in a traffic accident. Her death has a further tragic impact on Milton’s life, leading him to sell his ranch and travel to Montana in search of Caleb, the man who failed to help his daughter in the accident. It’s a film about two men who in other circumstances could have been good friends. Although separated by terrible circumstances, they share a common passion: Music.

The Ben Affleck-directed Nike film Air from Amazon Studios, Skydance Sports and Mandalay Pictures is set to close out the SXSW Film Festival in a surprise showing ahead of its global April 5th theatrical release, Deadline can confirm. The screening is expected to take place at Austin, TX’s Paramount Theatre at 6:30 p.m on March 18.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s Nike drama “Air” is heading to Austin, Texas. The movie will screen to the public for the first time at SXSW as the festival’s closing night film on March 18. Currently on the SXSW website, there’s a TBA under the Closing Night Special Screening at Paramount Theatre at 6:30 p.m. Amazon is releasing “Air,” which centers on real-life Nike shoe salesman Sonny Vaccaro and his pursuit of basketball phenom Michael Jordan, in theaters on April 5. According to the film’s logline, “this moving story follows the career-defining gamble of an unconventional team with everything on the line, the uncompromising vision of a mother who knows the worth of her son’s immense talent, and the basketball phenom who would become the greatest of all time.”